February 1692. Salem Village, Massachusetts. Tituba, her husband John, and their infant daughter live uneasily as enslaved Indians in the Puritan household of the Reverend Samuel Parris. It’s the coldest New England winter in memory, the minister’s salary has not been paid, and firewood is in short supply. To comfort herself and nine-year old Betty Parris, Tituba tells stories from her childhood, magical stories to offer an escape from the present, but they raise the suspicions of Betty’s mother, Elizabeth. In the meantime, fighting between colonists and Indians in nearby Maine is worsening. Already there are refugees from earlier Indian wars living in Salem Village, including Betty’s eleven-year-old cousin Abigail, who suffers from night terrors and a racking cough. Now, Betty begins to show the same symptoms, and rumors spread that the girls are possessed. Tituba is one of the first to be arrested under suspicion of witchcraft. In a desperate act to save herself and her family, she chooses to “confess.” Tituba’s false testimony sets the members of the Puritan community against one another. The accusations multiply, the jail cells fill, and the condemned are sent to the gallows. Ultimately, before the fury burns itself out, twenty women and men are executed for witchcraft, and several more die in jail. At the height of the panic, 150 people were packed into the jail with Tituba. Now, in the spring of 1693, only she remains, because no one has yet paid her jail fees. “Telling stories to children – is that witchcraft?” she wonders. And what if it’s true? What if she is a witch? Then she can conjure whatever ending she wants to this story.